


three a.m.

by forestknifefight



Series: turntechGodhead is offline [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety, Background Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam - Freeform, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Past Child Abuse, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:53:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23100517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestknifefight/pseuds/forestknifefight
Summary: Four years later, Dave is still having nightmares. He's struggling with the past and how it will affect his future. Things have changed.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Series: turntechGodhead is offline [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660348
Kudos: 31





	three a.m.

When Dave’s body jolts awake at f in the morning for the fourth night in a row, it’s a sign to him that something is wrong. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed he shares with Karkat not so gently causing his boyfriend to stir and shoot a hand out to him.

“Where are you going?” Karkat asks.

“Water.”

Dave hears a small grunt. “Okay.”

Karkat’s hand is pulled back into his body as Dave stands. His feet pad carefully across the apartment as he fulfills his night three a.m. routine. Flick on the kitchen light. Open the glass cupboard and pull out something. Fill it with tap water even though there’s a perfectly acceptable water filter jug in the fridge. Take exactly two sips of water before dumping out the rest and setting the glass in the dish rack.

There’s a system here.

Tonight, Dave has an idea. He opens the window that leads to the fire escape and climbs through. There’s no roof access in this building, a condition made clear when they moved here two years ago.

He stares out at the city and listens to the noises. Houston was noisy at night in some parts, sure, but New York is always loud. There’s no reason for it to be this loud.

 _Everything is so overwhelming,_ Dave thinks. He got everything he wanted: away from bro-dad, closer to Rose and Mom, closer to Karkat.

_Why aren’t I happy?_

Maybe it’s the nightmares. It has to be that. They used to be pretty spread out. Weeks between nightmares made it easier to ignore them. By the time the next one came, he’s already forgotten the last one. But this is the fourth fucking night he’s had a nightmare and woke up ready to scream.

They’re always different. Sometimes it's bro-dad back from the dead, zombified and ready to drag a 23-year-old man back to Houston. Sometimes he’s sent back to his childhood. Pre-teen years. Teens. The child ones are the worst. Reliving what seemed normal and fine but with this new lens.

 _What he did to you was wrong, no matter how it helped you,_. he reminds himself. He has to remind himself that a lot.

He’s reminded of when the last place they lived in got broken into. He immediately jumped into action, reaching for a sword when he realized something vital: there are no swords in the house. Karkat won’t allow them. He doesn’t want me to hurt myself. The break-in wasn’t anything. When the guy realized people were home still, he left. They still moved a month later.

Bright light shines in Dave’s eyes as the sun comes up. _How the hell did I sit out here for three hours?_ He wonders to himself. He quickly climbs back inside and closes the window. He goes back to the kitchen and starts some coffee.

“You never came back,” Karkat says from the doorway of their bedroom.

Dave shakes his head.

“Why not?”

“Was thinkin’.”

“About what?”

Dave looks up at Karkat for the first time since he woke up. “How things have changed.”

Karkat hums and moves closer to him. He presses a quick kiss to Dave’s jaw and steps around him to wait for the coffee.

The two sit on the couch with their coffee when it’s done.

“So, what’s changed?” Karkat asks.

“What?”

“You said you were thinking about how things have changed. How have things changed?”

Dave sighs. A lot changes in four years, he guesses.

“I was thinking about everything. Moving to the city with you. Seeing Rose and my mom so often. Shit, the fact that they’re getting married soon is fucking wild to me. You know I’m still dealing with what happened with Bro. I’m just—" Another heavy sigh. “Maybe I should just save it for Doc Clarke.”

Karkat sets his coffee mug down. “Didn’t she say that you won’t get much healing done if you don’t talk to me or Rose or anyone else about what’s bothering you? Doesn’t Rose also say the same shit? You should talk about it with us.”

Dave downs his coffee in one quick gulp and stands. “I will. Just not now.”

Karkar rolls his eyes. He picks up his mug and leaves for their bedroom.

Dave takes a moment. He knows he should talk to Karkat and Rose, two of the most important people in his life, about what’s going on in his head. He knows that.

He just can’t.

There’s so much going on with everyone. Karkat is finishing his masters’ in communication this year. Rose and Kanaya are getting married. He doesn’t want to add unnecessary stress.

\--

“I thought about my dad today,” Dave admits.

He’s in Doc Clarke’s office. He calls her that as a reference to a song he heard a couple of years ago. The song mentioned a therapist named “Doc Clarke,” and he thought it was funny.

“When was the last time you thought about him?” Doc Clarke asks.

“Shit, uh…” Dave thinks for a second. “Maybe two years ago? I’m pretty sure it was when our last apartment got broken into.”

“What made you think about him today?”

“I’ve been having these nightmares about what happened. I woke up at three about to scream. Fucked up shit, Doc.”

Doc Clarke winces. “Wanna talk about it? The dream, I mean. You’ve made it clear that you’re not ready to talk about the abuse.”

Dave glances out the window, over the city. It’s four in the afternoon now. So different from this morning.

“No,” Dave finally says.

“Okay,” Doc Clarke says. “What did you think of when you thought of your dad?”

Dave inhales. He’s quiet for a solid minute.

“I’m still really unhappy. It’s been four years. Why can’t I be happy yet?” Dave says.

Doc Clarke purses her lips. “Happiness isn’t that simple. In your case, so much trauma happened that you may need more to be happy. Do you talk to Karkat? Or Rose? About your anxieties?”

“No.”

“Dave. You should be talking to them. They saw what happened, I didn’t. They can help you more than I can.”

“If I talk to Karkat, I worry that he’ll shut down. We’re not great at sharin’ our emotions, Doc. And with Rose… she’ll just go into her classic psychoanalyst mode again, and I’m not ready for that kind of shit in my life.”

The timer next to Doc Clarke beeps. She presses the button to shut it off.

“Look, Dave, I want to keep talking about this. I want to be able to convince you to talk to your family about your problems. That means you have a healthy family.”

Dave nods and stands. He shakes Doc Clarke’s hand and quickly, yet still respectfully, leaves the office.

\--

The next morning, Dave’s body jolts awake at three o’clock. He rubs his tired face and throws his legs over the side of the bed. He looks over his shoulder at Karkat sleeping.

_Now’s not the time._

**Author's Note:**

> For your listening pleasure: "Interlude: Shadow" by BTS
> 
> I didn't think I was going to post a sequel to TGIO, but here I am, so many months later having a *hell* of a time. This one is going to be set now so that I don't have to struggle with cultural references. It's like the Dragon Ball Super of TGIO (wherein DBZ's final episode was like a ten-year time skip and DBS takes place in those ten years. That's this.) This story will also be shorter. Probably only like 7 or 8 chapters. The chapter titles will still be songs though, like Interlude: Shadow.


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